With "Bunty Aur Babli", get ready for a full-on fun session with the trio that has given us some of the best movie soundtracks in recent times, like "Kuchh Na Kaho", "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Kal Ho Na Ho".
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's teaming up with the exclusive Gulzar in this 'dhamaka' of an album is a bit of a historic event. In director Shaad Ali's previous film "Saathiya", the poet extraordinaire had collaborated with A.R. Rahman for the exquisite and fragile songs.
Exquisite and fragile aren't words that apply to "Bunty Aur Babli" though. As the title suggests, the songs are bubbly and brittle! The rugged, robust rhythms of north India are welded into what we can call the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy effect.
The songs are rooted to folk rhythms from Uttar Pradesh, but take off from there to acquire an all-embracing look, feel and flavor.
My pick of the freshly plucked lot is the Alisha Chinai-helmed qawwali song "Kajra re". Filmed on the two Bachchans - Amitabh and Abhishek - and, hold your breath, Aishwarya Rai, this track gets your body swaying unknowingly and your sole acquires a life of its own.
Alisha is a very sensuous singer. And when she combines her chords with Shankar Mahadevan, there is bound to be an explosion...catch the falling shards of that explosion in "Kajra re".
The qawwali is strategically positioned at the end of the album. For starters, we have "Dhadak dhadak". Terrific arrangements with backup beats that have you itching for a way out of the rhythmic trap, plus expert vocals by Udit Narayan and Sunidhi Chauhan.
Funny, how in no time at all, Sunidhi matches steps with seasoned male vocalists and even gives them a run for their money. She features in only one track. The pop-bhangra "Naach baliye" is given over to Shankar Mahadevan, Somya Rao and Loy Mendosa to create a kind of kaleidoscopic compulsion on the dance floor.
There's the mandatory love ballad "Chup chup ke". It sounds not the least formalistic when Sonu Nigam and Mahalaxmi Iyer sound so much in love in the track.
Throughout this zany, zingy and zippy album, the 70-year-old Gulzar imbues a youthfulness that comes from being young at heart. Indeed that is the quality that flows freely out of this album. You can't miss its zest for life or its lunge towards a luscious nirvana obtained from looking at life through rose-tinted glasses.
This is a total get-happy album - with bits and pieces of brilliance floating in and out of our aural orbit - that otherwise seems deceptively run of the mill.
Don't let the surface bubbles fool you. There's a lot of substance underscoring this effervescent soundtrack.